Copyright nypost
An NYPD detective whose family lineage with The Finest spans four generations hung up his badge and gun for the last time Friday – as he recalled a job he’s loved since “day one.” Walter Harkins retired following a 33-year career with the department – part of around 150 total years of service his family gave the Big Apple — as colleagues and loved ones honored the dedicated officer with a walkout ceremony at the Ted Weiss Federal Building in lower Manhattan. “I felt it [becoming a police officer] was in my blood,’ said the 62-year-old Queens resident who was on the FBI-NYPD Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. He started on the job in 1993, but his family history in law enforcement dates back the same year Grover Cleveland was elected president. Harkins’ great-grandfather, Patrick Harkins, first joined the city’s police force in 1884 – before the city had five boroughs – and rose to the rank of inspector before leaving in 1916. His grandfather, Walter EB Harkins, began his NYPD career in 1922 until retiring in 1964 as deputy chief inspector and his late father, Walter E. Harkins Sr. was with the department between 1959 and 1998, in which he worked as a homicide detective. “Well, I grew up in a police family. My father, you know, he wasn’t home on weekends, or every five weeks, when I wake up, he’d still be at work,” Harkins, a father of two sons, told The Post. “Or when I go to bed, he’s not home yet. So I — we grew up in that, in that household, I was used to it, I mean, and then my kids saw it’s a culture, it’s not, I wouldn’t describe it as a job, and I’m not knocking other people’s jobs. “I would like to say it’s just policemen are different, and I’m not saying they’re better than everybody, but it’s just different.” Harkins started out as a truck driver, before he decided to pivot careers at 27 years old and take the test to join the department as former Mayor David Dinkins pushed to hire more cops. Three years later, he joined the department and never looked back. “I enjoyed it from day one, but being older and joining the police department made a difference, because I had already had many adult jobs,” he said. “Yeah, so you join a police department, it’s just different. And I loved it. I loved it.” On the task force since 2017, his days could start pre-dawn and involved hunting for a fugitive or investigating a trafficking case as part of a team of local cops and FBI officers. His two sons, Christopher Harkins, 28, and Thomas Harkins, 22, as well as his girlfriend Toni Ventrello, were all on hand as the retired cop received a hero’s sendoff from more than 50 attendees. While his two sons aren’t cops, Christopher is a security supervisor at Madison Square Garden and Thomas works for the city’s Parks Department. “Just always growing up, I want to follow in his footsteps. He was first, you know, a truck driver, before he became a police officer. Now, saying, I always took an interest in on top of that, I always took an interest in public service, and so for me, the Parks Department was a great stepping stone to get into that,” Thomas told The Post. “I got my commercial driver’s license because of him. He’s always something I looked up to, and I think I’m following in his footsteps pretty closely.” Harkins heard chants of “Walter” as waved to colleagues and then rode off in an old school baby-blue vintage Chrysler Plymouth Gran Fury provided by the Edward Byrne Foundation for the special moment. He called the final farewell “bittersweet.” “I really, I really love my career,” he said. “I love the NYPD.”
